Thoughts on Mandell

One issue Mandell talks about in the reading is the clashes and contradictions between the enlightenment ideals of equality and the individual right to property, both of which were important revolutionary ideals that the fledgling nation struggled to deal with. “insisted that the country’s inhabitants “are more upon an equality in stature, and powers of body and mind, than the subjects of any government in Europe, and that New Englanders in particular “enjoy the most perfect equality.” (Mandell 83) People in the united states feared a new aristocracy that would dominate them as the British did, and this fear caused them to try and prevent an aristocracy from forming. What would allow a new aristocracy to form would be wealth and power typically in the form of property such as land and slaves, there were attempts to limit these potential aristocrats’ wealth through various means but doing so would interfere with their rights to control over the property of individuals. Other ways of introducing an aristocracy were through education or through the structuring of political systems to favor certain groups. This political favoring can be seen by denying suffrage to all, by having large voting districts letting those with more resources be able to win elections. I saw many parallels between this reading and contemporary issues, the prominent challenges the U.S faces that Mandell talks about in this reading are fear and equality and the proposed means to solve each. I specifically thought that the means he chooses to highlight was interesting as many of the pushes for equality come down to a battle between individual property rights and broader equality economically and politically. The U.S still faces challenges such as implementing taxes, gun rights, abortion, and LGBT issues. Moreover, something the reading and more generally the class has is the fear that was held by the post-revolutionary U.S, some of the measures talked about such as landholding limits seem extremely radical even for today and indicate the sense of fear drilled in from the colonial period into the nation’s psyche to cause them to act in such radical wasys. I think we still feel this national fear as can be seen by our last few wars and democratic rhetoric by politicians.